Comments on: Always Contest Your Home’s Tax Assessment

By: jim

jim — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 20:41:46 +0000

BTW, that’s the same Tony as in the article so he knows what he’s talking about (as opposed to any random Tony, they don’t know what they’re talking about)

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 20:36:18 +0000

Clever Dude…You can save money. I also live in Montgomery County and may have some insight for you.

If you successfully contest your $470k value to say $400k, then your new adjusted assessment is good for 3 years, meaning in 3 years instead of starting the reassessment process at $470, you are starting it at $400k, which will lower your base for the next assessment cycle, and so on. B/c of the soft market NOW, you can save in the future.

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 08:07:37 +0000

I’d love to contest it however…… We finished out our basement, adding square footage to our home. I’m afraid if I contest it, they’ll include the new rooms and actually raise the taxes.

By: Clever Dude

Clever Dude — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 01:45:13 +0000

When we got the new assessment, it went from 252,000 to 470,000 a year after we bought the house. I was proud of the increase, but knew my home couldn’t sell for that amount. I submitted a rebuttal and they contacted me soon after.

I was freaking out about the increase because it would mean $1000 a year increase for the next 3 years in my taxes. However, they explained something very important for me.

In Montgomery County, they have the Homestead Tax Credit, which means I qualify for a 10% cap in the increase from year to year. That means that my first year increase wouldn’t go from 252k to 470k; it would go to 277k. That’s only a $100 increase. In order to save even 1 cent, my home would need to be devalued over $193,000. That’s not going to happen.

So although my taxes will increase $100 a year over the next 3 years, arguing is futile in my case.

By: Blaine Moore (First Time Home Owner)

Blaine Moore (First Time Home Owner) — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 21:50:53 +0000

What your house is worth on paper and what you can sell it for are two totally different things, and your ego shouldn’t be tied to either number.

By: CK

CK — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 21:21:58 +0000

I just called and got mine knocked down. Probably will save me about $300 dollars a year. Not bad for a 5 minute phone call.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 16:20:31 +0000

I’d take out the word “Always” in your title because if I questioned mine I would be paying more! For whatever reason our assessed value is very incorrect. We have had numerous problems with our recent house purchase and the property taxes, but this is one problem I’m not going to question. Our assessed value is at $47,500! The home was for sale at close to $200,000 and we ended up with a final purchase price of not much more than $150,000 and we had it assessed at around $175,000 before buying.

I don’t know what the problem is, but there is no way I’m going to bring it to anyone’s attention or contest it. Of course this probably comes at a price, because they don’t have the taxes tied to our escrow properly, our property taxes go to our old address and they still haven’t fixed it and they did not correctly file our homestead exemption. So while it is a lot of headaches, I’ll live with it if they don’t want to properly assess our home.